Author: staff
ATHENS — Margaritis Schinas, a former European Commission vice president, is set to take over the Greek agriculture ministry after a widening farm fraud scandal prompted the resignation of three top government officials. Agriculture Minister Konstantinos Tsiaras, Civil Protection Minister Ioannis Kefalogiannis and Deputy Health Minister Dimitris Vartzopoulos stepped down Friday after being implicated in fresh allegations from the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) earlier this week. The European investigations are chipping deeper into the ranks of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ center-right New Democracy party. They focus on dozens of cases in which Greeks allegedly received EU agricultural funds for pastureland…
In Kakanj, an industrial town in the heart of Bosnia and Herzegovina, everything revolves around lignite. Thousands of jobs depend on it. Here lie 440 million tonnes of coal, one of the largest deposits in Europe. I get special authorisation to enter the huge open-cast pit. Coal was already being mined in Kakanj during the time of the Austrian emperor. Before World War I, some five thousand miners toiled here. Today, there are still 1200. One of them is Omer Hrustić: “I was literally a kid when my uncle brought me to the work site. Yeah, it’s three generations, literally.…
Published on 03/04/2026 – 15:39 GMT+2 President Donald Trump said on Friday that the United States could “open” the Strait of Hormuz and “take the oil” if it has more time. “With a little more time, we can easily OPEN THE HORMUZ STRAIT, TAKE THE OIL, & MAKE A FORTUNE. IT WOULD BE A ‘GUSHER’ FOR THE WORLD???” Trump posted. The message, on his Truth Social platform, did not explain how the United States could end Iranian control over the Hormuz waterway or what oil Trump was referring to. Lying between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, the…
Swedish authorities suspect the vessel may be part of Russia’s so-called shadow fleet, a covert network of mostly aging oil tankers used to circumvent sanctions imposed after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. In a post on X, Civil Defense Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin said the “older, inadequately insured tankers that circumvent sanctions pose a significant security and environmental threat” to the country. “The government views the incident with grave concern, even though this time it is not a matter of a large-scale oil spill,” he added. It is the third time this year that Swedish authorities have boarded a suspected false-flagged vessel. Last…
Published on 03/04/2026 – 14:40 GMT+2•Updated 14:48 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that Israeli air strikes have destroyed about 70% of Iran’s steel production capacity, significantly hindering its ability to manufacture weapons. Steel is a strategically important material used in industrial and military production, including of missiles, drones and ships. “Together with our American friends, we continue to crush the terror regime in Iran. We are eliminating commanders, bombing bridges, bombing infrastructures,” Netanyahu said in a video statement. “In recent days, the Air Force has destroyed 70% of Iran’s steel production capacity,” he said. “This is a tremendous…
“We’ve simplified it,” said a senior administration official, who was granted anonymity per the terms of a press call. “Made it much more simple to import to America.”But the official also said the move would eliminate the “windfall” companies receive as a result of “artificially reducing their price” of production and then charging U.S. consumers far more.The announcements come on the one-year anniversary of what the president deemed “Liberation Day,” the date on which he imposed a set of sweeping tariffs on U.S. trading partners that rattled the worldwide economy and were eventually ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.They signal…
Moscow will not tolerate Armenia’s closer ties with the EU, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan during a rare and tense meeting at the Kremlin on Wednesday, issuing a not-so-veiled threat over Russian gas supplies to the neighbouring country. “We see that there is a discussion in Armenia about developing relations with the European Union,” Putin said at the meeting with Pashinyan, adding that Moscow treats it “absolutely calmly”. “But it should be obvious and honestly stated upfront that membership in a customs union with both the EU and the Eurasian Economic Union is impossible,” Putin…
Kallas, a former Estonian prime minister who took up the High Representative role in December 2024, straddles multiple EU power centers — serving as a Commission vice president under von der Leyen while also chairing meetings of EU foreign ministers and working closely with member countries. That hybrid setup has long created overlap — and occasional turf battles — with the Commission president, a leading figure in the center-right European People’s Party, while Kallas belongs to the liberal Renew Europe group. One flashpoint has been von der Leyen’s decision to establish an intelligence cell within the Commission, mirroring capabilities already…
Published on 03/04/2026 – 12:34 GMT+2 Sweden’s coastguard said it boarded a vessel subjected to EU sanctions on Friday, suspecting it of an environmental crime after an oil spill in the Baltic Sea. The Flora 1 tanker vessel was boarded after an oil spill stretching 12 kilometres was detected early on Thursday east of the Swedish island of Gotland, the coastguard said in a statement. The vessel was escorted to an anchorage near Ystad in southern Sweden. “Upon discovery, it was determined that the vessel is on the EU sanctions list and several unclear issues surrounding the vessel were identified,…
Updated: 03/04/2026 – 12:00 GMT+2 Catch up with the most important stories from around Europe and beyond this April 3rd, 2026 – latest news, breaking news, World, Business, Entertainment, Politics, Culture, Travel. … More